Most position sensors are sold as complete units: housing, bearing, shaft, seals and electronics, ready to bolt on. For an OEM building a few hundred machines a year, that packaging is sometimes the wrong product. You already have a housing, you already have a bearing, and you are paying for someone else version of both.
A sensor kit is the alternative — the measuring element and wiper supplied as components, for mounting into your own mechanics. Accent supplies these from both Contelec and Novotechnik as authorised distributor for India and SAARC.
What a sensor kit actually is
A potentiometric sensor kit is an absolute resistance element and a matched wiper assembly, designed to be installed into a closed device that the machine builder provides. Position is read as a voltage ratio across the element, exactly as in a packaged transducer — the difference is who supplies the mechanics.
The range we supply includes:
- PTN and PTX — absolute potentiometric resistance elements and wipers, for mounting in a closed device
- PRS — resistance element and wiper combination with high accuracy
- PTP — potentiometric position transducer in a cost-optimised compact design, where you want a packaged unit but a small and inexpensive one
What you gain
Cost. You are not buying a housing, a bearing and a shaft seal you already have. On volume production this is the main driver.
Space. A kit integrated into existing mechanics is substantially more compact than a packaged transducer bolted onto them. Where the machine is already tight, this is sometimes the only way position measurement fits at all.
No coupling. A packaged rotary transducer needs coupling to the shaft, and that coupling introduces backlash, misalignment and a wear point. An integrated element rides on the shaft you already have.
Ingress protection by design. If the element sits inside a housing you have already sealed, the sensor inherits that sealing rather than needing its own.
What you take responsibility for
Being direct about this, because it decides whether a kit is appropriate.
Bearing quality and alignment. In a packaged transducer the manufacturer controls the relationship between shaft and element. With a kit, you do. Radial play translates directly into wiper tracking error, and a worn bearing produces a noisy output that looks like a failed sensor.
Wiper pressure and contact geometry. Specified by the manufacturer and set by your assembly. Too light and the contact becomes intermittent; too heavy and the element wears prematurely.
Contamination control. The element is exposed to whatever is inside your housing. Swarf, condensation and grease migration all cause problems that a sealed packaged unit would have excluded.
Assembly consistency. The measurement is only as repeatable as your build process. This needs a documented assembly procedure and an end-of-line check.
When a kit is the right decision
Yes — volume production, an existing housing with a well-supported shaft, space constrained, and an assembly process capable of holding the tolerances.
No — low volume or one-offs, where the engineering effort is not repaid. Retrofits onto existing machines. Harsh or contaminated environments where a sealed packaged unit is safer. Anywhere the assembly cannot reliably hold wiper geometry.
Packaged rotary alternatives
If a kit is not right, the packaged potentiometric rotary range covers most requirements:
- IP-6000 — absolute high-precision potentiometric rotary sensor, robust and sealed
- IPX-7900 — high-precision potentiometric rotary for harsh conditions, available to IP69
- GP — high-precision potentiometric rotary with reduction gear, for measuring across more than one input revolution
- AW-360 — high-precision rotary in a robust design with gap-free output voltage across the full turn, useful where the measurement must not have a dead band at the wrap point
- SP-2800 — compact and robust absolute potentiometric rotary, straightforward to install and adjust
- F200 — absolute inductive transducer with centering collar and integrated sealed hybrid electronics, where a non-contacting element is preferred
The gap-free question
Worth understanding before specifying any single-turn rotary sensor. Most potentiometric elements have a small dead band at the point where the track ends and begins again — a few degrees where the output is undefined. If your measurement never crosses that point, it does not matter. If the shaft rotates continuously through it, the output jumps.
Where that matters, specify a gap-free type such as the AW-360, or a touchless design. It is a cheap thing to get right at specification and an expensive thing to discover at commissioning.
Getting a recommendation
For a kit, send us the shaft diameter, the available space, the measuring angle, the bearing arrangement, and your annual volume. For a packaged unit, the mounting arrangement, measuring angle, required accuracy, output and environment. If you have a drawing of the housing the sensor has to live in, that answers most of it at once.
Need a price, a drawing or a stock check?
Send us the part number, or just describe the application and the target you need to sense. We will come back with the right model, a dimensional drawing and a quotation. Accent Controls has built sensors in Mumbai since 1985 and is the sole authorised distributor in India and SAARC for Novotechnik (Germany) and Contelec (Switzerland).
Request a quotation · +91 98673 64004 · info@accentsensors.com